Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2005 for Mac - Financial Management - MacWhether you're managing your personal finances, investing for your future, or running a small business - or all three - there's a Quicken product that's right for you.Save, invest and track profits with tools that help you pay bills quickly, balance your checkbook, create a budget, plan for retirement, simplify taxes and manage your investments. Nice electronics is your source for everyday low prices on theIntuit 283646 - QUICKEN 2005 MACand all other Intuit Software - Misc ... Read more

Features

• Track home inventory and value; convenient iCal calendar
• Save, invest, and track profits in minutes
• Download banking, credit card, and brokerage transactions
• Track spending; manage investments; prepare for tax time
• Track portfolio performance; read news stories related to holdings

Reviews (32)

I should have heeded the advise of the other reviewers
I have used Quicken since 1999.During a recent change to MAC from PC I purchased the Quicken 2005.I am very disappointed with the program.It is cumbersome and does not do many of the things that 2004 did and if it does I can't figure out how.I plan on going back to 2004.This was a total waste of money.

Forget .QIF; there are more serious problems with this S/W
I didn't pay for this upgrade but rather got it 'free' when I bought a Mac Mini. Converting my old files seemed to go fine*, and I had no problems with downloads.

*I did notice that my cash balances remained incorrect until I clicked in every transaction and hit Return, thus slapping it upside the head to make it add/subtract the transaction (!)

There are Very Basic Errors in this program that drive me crazy:
1.) It's very difficult to enter stock purchases with a purchase price other than that which Quicken has in mind... You have to bash it over the head again and again.
2.) You will get basic math errors, only some of which could charitably be attributed to rounding, and will end up with a trail of adjusting .o1 entires here and .00045 shares there...
3.)It does not handle stock spinoffs with more than one spinoff-ee.
4.)It does not handle capital gains correctly for stocks that have had spinoff-ee (see Quicken's own forums for this).
5.) For some reason beknownst only to them, the portfolio accounts are horribly crippled compared to the checkbooks.. so.. NO copying of transactions in case you make a mistake, NO scheduled transactions, NO calendar, NO memorized transactions (yeah, I was thrilled to enter 15 years' worth of monthly dividends by hand... I loved typing "$17.11" one hundred and sixty-something times..) uhmmm this is a COMPUTER? right?

Downloading transactions - four stars
Checkbook - four stars
Investment functions - negative ten stars

I have been using Quicken since 1992, and have kept waiting for new versions to address some of the things, like memorized xactions, before plunging in and entering all my old statements. I started anyway with this 2005 version and am sorry I did!

Some smart programmer somewhere should be reading this and firing up his compiler.. The World Deserves Better Software Than This!

Ditto, ditto, ditto... a complete waste of time and money
Balancing your accounts with pencil and paper is easier than using this program. I have a bank account at Bank of America, investment account at TD Waterhouse and a retirement account at Fidelity, hardly obscure institutions. I cannot download transactions directly from ANY of these accounts. I can download my Bank of America and Fidelity transactions as a file to my desktop and then import them: i.e. navagate to the web site, sign in, go to "accounts," select the account I want to download, find the "download" button, select "location" to download to, switch back to Quicken, select "import" from the menu. Let's see now.... one step on the Windows version versus EIGHT on the Mac version. From what I can tell, there's no way at all to import my TD Waterhouse transactions.

I can't believe that Quicken has the audacity to charge money for this. I can't believe Apple includes it already loaded on new Macs (which is how I got mine): doing so will only reinforce the perception that the software that most of the world needs to use just isn't available for Mac. I've ended up buying VirtualPC and using it to run my Windows version of Quicken on my Mac.

Do not buy Quicken 2005
This product is a waste of time. You can not get MAC support from Quicken and Quicken is trying to hold users of Quicken 2002 hostage by disabling the down loading feature from financial institutions. Stop using Quicken now - why pay an extra $10 for the Mac version for an inferior version. Buy Moneydance instead, its only $30.

Worthless
I recently switched from Microsoft to Mac and found that this is just about the only financial software written for Mac.I have found it to be very buggy.Some "features" don't work and customer support is non-existant.Downloading account information is just about as difficult as setting up online features.I really do not trust this software.Each week I sit with a calculator and double check the figures.Often Quicken has made "adjustments" for my accounts and I have to fudge figures to get them correct.Next year I will be going back to Microsoft and one of my first software puchases will be Microsoft Money! ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2005 Deluxe - Financial Management - PCQuicken 2005 Deluxe makes it easier than ever for you to find out what you have and where it's going by helping you with paying bills, saving more money and planning for your future. Quicken 2005 includes over 100 customer driven enhancements, making it easier than ever for you to manage your finances. Nice electronics is your source for everyday low prices on theIntuit 283650 - QUICKEN 2005 DELUXEand all other Intuit Software - Misc ... Read more

Features

• Plan for financial goals by viewing net worth over time
• Over 100 feature improvements on popular tools
• Connect instantly to bank, credit card sites, and 401(k) providers
• Manage finances by setting up automatic transactions
• Quickly and easily track investment holdings

Reviews (103)

Buyer beware!
I have used quicken for years, mostly just to manage my bank account and household expenses. In the past I have encouraged others, including my own children, to buy and use Quicken. But no more! They have taken a wonderful, easy to use product and turned it into a nightmare of captive registration, popup advertising and other annoyances. I hope the managers at quicken read the Amazon reviews and get a clue. They certainly don't make it easy to give them feedback on their web site, so I don't really think they care what their customers think. Potential buyers should note carefully the fact that quicken has only a 1-1/2 star rating. There is a reason for this. Buyer beware. I gave them a two-star rating because once you get everything installed and working, the product does it's job nicely. It is the installation, captive registration and advertising that I objected to. Captive registration? I absolutely could not use the product until I had "registered" on their web site. This was really outrageous! I had already paid my money. I didn't want them to have my name and address email and phone number. But I had to give it to them or the product didn't work. This was not a polite rquest for registration. This was an in your face, you can't get out of this screen until you fill it out ... correctly... registration. Then they tried to force me to keep my data on their web site. No way! Ads would pop up during installation; they dropped commercial icons onto my desktop without permission. I had to remove them. Maybe some folks would appreciate these "features" and use the services of lenders, etc whose icons they conveniently dropped on my desktop. But I didn't appreicate it.

Poor customer service
I have been using Quicken for almost 10 years now and the most recent 2005 really has been a headache although I have used it successfully until today.

The back up system was perfectly fine until this version and now I have my head spinning.Luckily I have managed to wade through that part.

Today I was entering 401k transactions manually as I have done for years and everything was going smoothly until I noticed my balance in the account was double what it should be.I looked over all the transactions and nothing was entered incorrectly.So I deleted them and the balance was still double. HUH!!!???

So I decided to restore from my back up copy and it was back to normal.So I then reentered all my bank transactions and backed it up.:)Then started manually entering each 401k transaction for each of my investment accounts.I got through 6 of the 7 Investments and on the last page I put in the info and everything was accurate and hit enter and bam the balance was double again.I deleted that transaction and it still remained double.ARGH!!!!

I then decide to call Customer Service and chat on line and was informed he was not trained in Investments and I would have to call them for $24.95.I was not happy about having to call for something that was obviously a bug in their own program.

I ended up calling and during the call I explained I didn't want to pay the $25 and she told me I could chat and it wouldn't cost and I informed her that he was unable to help me and told me I would need to call.I decided I was not willing to pay the $25 and now will be looking for other options for my banking.

2005 sucks!!! There is just too much added for someone who wants it for everyday living.

Found a GREAT Alternative to Quicken
MoneyDance 2005 - www.moneydance.com

After years of using an end-of-life proprietary product from my bank, I finally had to breakdown and move from it due to it's lack of interoperability with XP Service Pack 2.I had delayed doing this for years because of the negative reviews I had seen here for Quicken, especially all of the embedded adware.I didn't trust Intuit (or Microsoft either) that a hidden online access point wouldn't be putting my valuable personal financial data at risk in order to promote it's online banking features.And then I found out that I was out of luck, because Quicken 2005 doesn't support .qif anymore *grrr*.

I searched Amazon, and found Moneydance and liked it's customer reviews, although they were a few years old.I went to it's website www.moneydance.com, and discovered that the product is still available and up to date.It also included a free trial, which I immediately downloaded and liked the software so much, I bought the full license within an hour.

If all you want is a reliable banking application with online bank access and NO ADWARE, this software is absolutely for you.The online component is not included by default, so no worries about the software taking you to a proprietary online banking site like quicken's or microsoft's.However, they make it VERY easy to add-on online banking features and support both .qif and Quicken's new .qdf formats.

All of my data transferred over (my old software was able to export to .qif), although I did have to spend a little time re-organizing things.Whether that is a quirk of Moneydance, or the legacy software I was transfering from, I don't know.The software has support for investment accounts, although I've never tracked mine using my banking software, so I haven't tried it.

Another big plus for the software is that it is Java based, and will install on any Java-enabled platform.No more being locked into Windows.

Screwed Over by the Upgrade
Like a dufus I bought Quicken2005.

BIG MISTAKE

The first thing it did was convert all my data to a new format that doesn't work with Quicken2002.Then, I discovered that it stopped support QIF imports.Now I cannot import data from my bank accounts.

So the big improvement after 3 years of work on this product is that you can now manually type everything into Quicken2005.

Wonderful.

So now I've gone back to Quicken2002, after uninstalling Quicken2005, searching backups to recover the data from Quicken2002, and losing all my data for this year.

Gee, to think that I *paid* for this downgrade.

Note: I chose not to spend $24.95 to call Quicken and ask for their help.Funny how every other software company I've used provides phone support for free.Maybe if these guys actually talked to their customers they would know what a colossal mistake they've made.

No problems
It has always amazed me that improvements in Quicken are so slow, the last update worth purchasing was in 95, with Quicken 6. Did all their programmers quit?

That being said, I had none of the problems of the other reviewers. Quicken 2005 installed with no problems, all 5 of the accounts I download, downloaded with no problems, and after a week of use everything works as should.

Quicken is the best home finance program available. If you do not own it, buy today, it will make you money much easier to manage and probably save you money. If you are currently a user, I would recommend you not update until Quicken forces you to! 5 stars if you are a new user, 3 stars if updating. ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2005 Premier Home & Business - Financial Management - PCQuicken 2005 Premier Home & Business includes exclusive features to help you manage your business finances, plus everything in Quicken 2005 Premier. See how your business is doing, track multiple jobs, send out customized invoices, track your taxes, and generate business reports. Over 100 customer-driven improvements make it easier than ever to get what you need out of your Quicken software! Nice electronics is your source for everyday low prices on theIntuit 283652 - QUICKEN 2005 PREMIER HOME & BUSINESS and all other Intuit Software - Misc ... Read more

Features

• Includes all features in Quicken 2005 Premier
• Powerful tool for managing business and personal finances
• Create customizable estimates and invoices
• Generate business reports and graphs, including Schedule C
• Track accounts receivable and payable

Reviews (26)

Not so bad
Having read all the bad reviews and forced to upgrade from Q2002, I had to take the leap in order to continue with my porfolio dounloads and mgt.I knew I didn't want MS Money from an earlier try about 2 yrs ago.Anyway, I use it for checkbook entries/family expense management and investments/portfolio management.It converted everything from Q2002 without a hitch and I haven't had any problems.Unlike some other problem areas, I do not use the bill pay portion of Quicken.I can't download my bank transactions since they still use QIF, but I knew this ahead of time from all the Amazon reviews.In order to get the same functions as Q2002 deluxe, I had to get the Premier Home and Business.One of the other reviewers hit the nail on the head regarding the underhanded way Intuit tries to get our money.I just wish there was another competitor other than MS Money.....maybe there will be soon.

Massive feature creep AND buggy online banking
Like many of the other reviewers, I've been using Quicken for quite some time. I was perfectly happy with Q2002, but Intuit wanted more of my money and started turning off all my online access unless I upgraded.

Q2005 has added any number of useless new "features" and you cannot seem to turn them off. Further, they insist on displaying a number of these "features" on the main register screens, cluttering up the display. I can no longer have my banking browser window open along with Quicken because the Quicken screen has all this extra junk around the register.

Add features fine. But let me ignore them, please. Don't clutter the screen with buttons and panes that I don't want to use. The technical term for this is "feature creep" where a good program is ruined by too many features. This program is becoming as unwieldy and impossible as Microsoft Word.

***One glaring bug***

When I schedule an online payment (using my bank's online banking), the scheduled payment appears in the register's "Num" column WITH A CHECK NUMBER. In my case, this check number happens to be a duplicate of previous check numbers (it's about 200 less than my current check number). Since I write many more online checks than paper ones, it will eventually march through my paper check numbers, creating all sorts of confusion. To fix this, one has to manually change the "Num" field (and can do so only after the payment is sent) to EFT or whatever you usually use to indicate an online (numberless) payment.What a royal pain!!!

Good update, no problems here

The bad reviews given to this product almost made me decide against upgrading from my older version (2002). But I decided to do it anyway, and I'm glad I did.

I encountered no problems and everything works pretty much the way it always did. I don't see any great improvements, and I don't like change, so I wish I hadn't been forced into upgrading (they discontinued support for the old version, including updating).

As in any program upgrade, there appear to be many things they changed for change sake, rather than for improved performance, but these were minor and just take a bit of getting used to.

Perhaps I just don't use the functions that caused problems for everyone else, but I use the portfolio, invoicing, scheduled payments, etc., plus the retirement and savings modules, etc. I do not sych to the Quicken website and use the update feature only to update prices on my portfolio.

Since everyone uses and needs different functions, the problems that other people encounter may not affect you at all. Like me, you may find it a perfectly satisfactory upgrade.

I actually like Quicken 2005....
Ok, I see a ton of bad reviews for Quicken 2005 PH&B, but I actually like it.I think the big difference between me and a lot of other people here is that I have never used Quicken before (or any other Quicken-type software).So I never had to go through an upgrade process or deal with anything like that.If you are starting fresh, I'd have to recommend Quicken 2005 to you.Now, I understand that Quicken is using the new OFX format.My credit cards are using this format, but my banks are not.So I have to enter some stuff in on my own.That's fine with me.Most of my stuff comes through the credit cards anyways.

I've never experienced any bugs or incorrect calculations.The first thing I did after installing the software was update it to Release 3 so maybe that's why.I'd suggest that everybody does the same.

Quicken 2005 is very powerful and very organized and I enjoy using it.

More glitches from Intuit
I'd already purchased Quicken 2005 when I read these reviews, so I put it on my laptop so that it wouldn't mess up my previous versions on the desktop machine.It synced perfectly with my bank--once.Now it says "invalid PIN" for my bank, although the PIN is not invalid; it's still the same one with which I can access the account otherwise.

Chalk up another glitch for this program, and beware: it may work once, but it won't work again.Sigh. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Premium.Microsoft Money Premium is the most complete financial package from Microsoft. This software will help you to optimize your financial future with all the personal finance tools needed to quickly and easily organize and manage your money.Microsoft Money 2005 Premium contains all the features of the Microsoft Money Deluxe edition. Balance your checkbook, pay bills online, download financial statements, create monthly reports and more. There are also tools to help you optimize your investments, maximize tax savings, track your portfolio and more. Also included are free financial services, such as credit reporting from Experian, a capital gains optimizer from GainsKeeper, online tax preparation and e-filing from HR Block and a one-year subscription to Money Magazine.FeaturesBalance your checkbook, pay bills online, download financial statements and more Maximize your tax savings Track and optimize your investments Easy-to-use tools help you achieve your financial goals Access all of your information in one place Bonus financial services include Experian credit reporting, a capital gains tax optimizer from GainsKeeper, online tax preparation from HR Block and a one-year subscription to Money Magazine ... Read more

Features

• Simplify taxes, maximize savings; achieve financial goals
• Personal finance software with award-winning Portfolio Manager
• Automatically consolidates online financial information
• Provides essential tools for planning financial future
• Integrated GainsKeeper for tax-smart investment choices

Reviews (42)

Best value for non-professionals
As a practicing tax attorney, I'm frequently asked to recommend a software package for home users.This is without doubt the most comprehensive, up-to-date, and easy-to-use software for the layman.If you use a CPA or tax attorney, this program helps track and print all the needed documents.If you file by yourself (good luck), it is equally effective in tracking your overall assets.Recommended.

Not bad but buy a reference book for it.
This is my frist try with personal finace software and so far its not bad.I would however recommened getting like a dummies guide to book of some sort with this software.It takes a lot of frustration out of setting it up.The users guide that comes with ths software isnt really a users guide, more like a book of advertisments for other products.The only other guide is in with the software through help and I found that equally as usless.So if you are willing to spend 50 - 70 bucks for this software go out and spend another 20 and get a book.It really helps.Other than that, that is my only complaint.

Not much of an upgrade
My bank is one of the largest in my region, and this thing still cannot synchronize with a simple checking account.I'm glad I tried it out on my friend's computer before I purchased it.MS Money 2004 Premium isn't any better, but at least it's less money.

Terrible product
We bought this software, but could not get it to load with the .NET account or access any of our online bank accounts. Basically useless, the help on microsoft website is tantamount to reloading all your other software to 'migrate' to a new admin account to get it to work. Software is not supposed to this hard.
I wasted a day on this, please don't do the same.

Incredibly Disappointing "Upgrade"
First, let me say that I have been an avid fan, user, and recommender of the Microsoft Money products since I first became acquainted with them after the 1998 version release of the product.

Words cannot express how greatly disappointed I am with the product itself and Microsoft as a company for unleashing this grossly inept, buggy, and endlessly frustrating piece of trash upon its previously contended users.

I have spent countless hours trying to fix problems that Money 2005 has created in my personal financial records, and even more hours with their support people communicating with them via e-mail (a journey in frustration itself - you have to format your messages a certain way for it to even get to them).

I am, as of today, sending a request to Microsoft for a refund of my purchase price and am going to try one of the Quicken products. I've never even used ANY of the Quicken products before, and am already convinced that they are surely head and shoulders above this latest version of Money.

Shame on Microsoft for thinking that nobody would be willing to jump ship and take their business elsewhere. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

It's a newspaper, it's a Web site--it's all of the information thatcomes rolled up in every edition of The Wall Street Journal and much more,available online. Anyone who wants to stay on top of U.S. and internationalnews, especially economic and technology-oriented stories, will find The WallStreet Journal Online to be a valuable asset. Forbes has called it "simply thebest business news site on the Web."

The interactive Journal delivers stock quotes on demand, continually updatednews, a customized news- and portfolio-tracking service, access to extensivearchives, and "briefing books" for 22,000 companies and more than 7,000 U.S.mutual funds.

Readers who are familiar with the print edition will not be surprised by theinteractive Journal's personality: it looks a lot like the paper version, andit's just as staid as its paper counterpart. Navigation is intuitive and ease ofuse is... easy.

Unlike the print journal, this version follows you to work and around the world.All you need is your password and laptop to carry this invaluable businesspartner to any meeting, anywhere. --Stefanie Durbin ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Know what's going on in the financial world
Know what's going on in the financial world and also get overwhelmed with lots of useless statistics that you don't really care about.I read the WSJ all the time now, I filter through the articles and only read what I think is really useful, since there is really so much information in this paper.

The pricing model is rather like a fast food value pricing model.Pay more but understand that you are getting more than you need.At times you will probably find yourself just looking at the headlines and throwing the thing out at the end of the day because at the end of the day, the news has suddenly become old news.

If you want to get the WSJ, get it for a briefer on the news that is interesting to you, the analysis and the opinions.For these things, it might be worth it.Obviously it helps if you have a morning commute on public transportation with nothing to read (those in cities who have bus and subways will enjoy intellectual reading material), this kills the time quickly.Once you're done reading most of the paper, you'll be at your destination.

this is supposed to be a review of wsj online not amazon!
this is the only subscription I would pay for. Easiest to activate, just use the supplied password and then you can change it later.

Can't "ship" it overseas
I tried to buy this package but in the ordering process was told that since I'm in New Zealand, the item cannot be "shipped" to my destination.Any system that maladroit deserves to choke on its own emissions -- and while it's probably more a reflection on Amazon than the Journal, someone at the paper should be more awake to these sorts of issues.

Minus 1 star for customer service
Customer service sucks, but i put up with it because you just can't beat the content.

Slow & Overloaded Website, cannot cancel
Website is slow and overloaded.Sometimes takes minutes to get into site or to get an article to load up (this on a high-speed connection).WSJ always claims that it's a problem on my end, even though all other sites I go to load up in 2 seconds or less.

Also, they go up on charges without warning.My original subscription was $29.Now it's $79, but they never warned that the charge was going to $79; they just charged my credit card. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Deluxe.This software includes all of the basic functions of Microsoft Money Standard, including the ability to download financial statements, automatic account balance, checkbook balance and more. You can also use the additional features, including credit center, debt reduction planner, tax estimator and financial events modeler to get a more in-depth picture of your financial health. Achieve all of your financial goals and manage your money like never before. FeaturesBalance your checkbook, pay bills online, download financial statements and moreVisit the Credit Center to view a summary of debts, learn about credit card management and more Make tax season easier by preparing year round with the Tax Estimator tools to estimate taxes, find hidden deductions, estimate capital gains and more Download banking, credit card and other financial information to make balancing accounts even easier Track your investments using the portfolio tools Achieve your financial goals with the debt reduction planner ... Read more

Features

• Get help with credit and debt; simplify taxes
• Personal finance software with award-winning Portfolio Manager
• Automatically consolidates online financial information
• Essential tools for improving credit and organizing taxes
• Stay up-to-date on accounts and transactions

Reviews (56)

waste of money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree with almost every negative review on this board. In comparison with 2004 edition, this one is just plain HORRIBLE. It looks prettier (kind of), but that's as far as it goes. I've been using MS Money since 2000, and I've enjoyed every upgrade; they've all been quite satisfactory save this monstrous creation. I haven't just used Money only, I've tried out Quicken 3 times, once back 4 years ago, another a year ago, and a week ago. It's too inflexible & the graphs stink.

Every time I do an internet update, it duplicates every account with some generic name (I track 3 checkings, 4 savings, 2 credit cards, 1 cash on hand, & 2 loans). I am NOT going to rename all the accounts again & redo every transaction with all the splits.

As far as MS Money 2005 goes:
I tried to do an update with CapitalOne, and it failed time after time. It also took flipping forever to do any of the updates! I wish I could have let the default setting NOT update news articles. I'm here to balance my checkbook, track settings, & budget, forecast, I don't care about news. I would love to elaborate further, but the arteries in my forhead would explode from my frustration.

Because I couldn't even get the program to KIND OF work, I wish I could give it ZERO stars. I refuse to spend countless hours (more) to try to get this piece of crud working; pen & paper IS BETTER than this program. Back to 2004 I go (until they release a HUGE compilative fix for all this poo).

Works fine for me, better then quicken
I read some of the reviews, and almost didn't by the 2005 but was looking for 2004.Bought 2005 (out of 2004) followed directions and it works like a chirm.

Not Ready For Beta Testing
Imagine if Microsoft Word crashed every time a period or capital letter was used or when opening saved documents some of the paragraphs appeared twice.Such is the state of affairs of Microsoft Money 2005.I have been using Microsoft Money since 1996; while it was never perfect, it basically did what it promised.I have also used the portfolio manager on the MSN website which is a subset of the Money program with a similar interface. Others have written about problems downloading bank and credit card statements; this review will focus on the portfolio manager.

The portfolio manager is the part of Money that keeps track of investment accounts. It is not unusual for multiple income families to own quite complicated investment portfolios including 401Ks, IRAs and college savings accounts.Something went very wrong in the fall of 2004 when Microsoft upgraded their software to Money 2005.Gone is the ability to analyze a single account or groups of accounts; you are forced to analyze your entire portfolio. When entering new equity transactions, Money used to allow you to simply enter the trading symbol and it would quickly find the name of the company and other information, now you must follow a wizard and enter the information by hand.Previously, you could enter a back dated transaction and it would guess a price using the closing price for the day (this is very useful for watch accounts); now you must manually enter the information.

The worse part has been the removal of the associated cash accounts.I never really appreciated the separate cash accounts until Microsoft removed them.For those unfamiliar with software, here is the basic concept.Say you own an account with a discount broker like Fidelity or Vanguard that holds six mutual funds.Associated with that account is a cash account in which you add and remove cash, collect dividends and conduct other transactions into and out of the account.When you sell a mutual fund, the proceeds are put into the cash account; similarly, cash is taken from the account when you buy shares of an investment.Prior versions of Money created a distinct cash account associated with a specific investment account.You could open the account, view the transaction history and correct any errors.In Money 2005, when you create a new account it simply asks for the initial cash balance.Money then automatically mismanages this account by recording dividends twice and mishandling sales proceeds.Furthermore, money will not allow you to record interest dividends, contributions or redemptions.There is no way to view the history at all; Money simply gives you the current value in a little box.When errors occur, the fix from Microsoft is to simply change the amount in the little box to the correct value.If you access the cash account too often it begins to create multiple cash accounts labeled #2, #3 leading to cash account nightmare.

Microsoft did an upgrade to the software this weekend (May 20, 2005).They have added more features and unfortunately more bugs; I have not noticed anything that has been fixed.New problems include: 1) updates are no longer stored on the MSN server preventing you from accessing up-to-date account information from multiple computers (this may be a temporary problem); 2) investments that lack a trading symbol, such as specialty funds available through certain 401Ks or 529 plans, are no longer supported.You can see the investment in your portfolio but you cannot record "buys" or other transactions; 3) information contained in watch accounts, such as year-to-date performance was lost after the upgrade.

I hope once Microsoft is finished adding features to their Money 2005 software they will work on bringing it from Alpha to Beta quality.Perhaps, after a year or two of Beta testing, Microsoft will be ready to release Money 2005 (or 2008) for general sale.Until then, I do not see how they can legally be selling software that fails to perform its basic functions.

stay away!
I bought Microsoft Money 2005 thinking it would help me get a grasp on my post-college finances. And it would, if it ever worked.

For one thing, the auto-update from bank account feature is a joke. It only works maybe 10% of the time, and every once in a while it would stop working for a week or two at a time. When that happened one time, I decided to try to send in an email to MS... they ask for your Product ID but its impossible to get to because of ANOTHER error. And then I tried to delete the accounts I had in there and re-add them but it didnt allow me to do that.

This program is a sad, sorry joke and I am puzzled asto how Microsoft could gain a foothold in this software genre with junk like this. A total waste of money.

WHAT A PIECE OF #$% !!!
I agree with almost every negative review on this board. In comparison with 2004 edition, this one is just plain HORRIBLE. It looks prettier (kind of), but that's as far as it goes. I've been using MS Money since 2000, and I've enjoyed every upgrade; they've all been quite satisfactory save this monstrous creation. I haven't just used Money only, I've tried out Quicken 3 times, once back 4 years ago, another a year ago, and a week ago. It's too inflexible & the graphs stink.

Every time I do an internet update, it duplicates every account with some generic name (I track 3 checkings, 4 savings, 2 credit cards, 1 cash on hand, & 2 loans). I am NOT going to rename all the accounts again & redo every transaction with all the splits.

As far as MS Money 2005 goes:
I tried to do an update with CapitalOne, and it failed time after time. It also took flipping forever to do any of the updates! I wish I could have let the default setting NOT update news articles. I'm here to balance my checkbook, track settings, & budget, forecast, I don't care about news. I would love to elaborate further, but the arteries in my forhead would explode from my frustration.

Because I couldn't even get the program to KIND OF work, I wish I could give it ZERO stars. I refuse to spend countless hours (more) to try to get this piece of crud working; pen & paper IS BETTER than this program. Back to 2004 I go (until they release a HUGE compilative fix for all this poo). ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2005 Basic.Whether you're managing your personal finances, investing for your future, or running a small business or all three there's a Quicken product that's right for you. Quicken 2005 Basic for Windows includes over 100 customer-driven enhancements that allow you to accomplish what you need with a lot less work.See your complete financial picture in minutes! Find out what you have and where it's going, pay bills, plan for your future, help save more money, and take control of your finances. System Requirements:IBM or compatible Pentium 200 (Pentium II 300 recommended)Windows 98/2000/Me/XP32 MB RAM (128 MB RAM recommended)100 MB Hard Drive Space, plus 45 MB for Microsoft Internet Explorer if IE 6.0 or higher is not already installed (IE 6.0 included on CD-ROM)Double speed CD-ROM (4X or higher recommended for multimedia) ... Read more

Features

• Quickly and easily create a personalized budget
• Powerful, easy-to-use tools for managing personal finances
• Track checking, savings, and credit-card transactions in one place
• Reconcile bank statements and balance checkbook in minutes
• Write and print checks or pay bills online

Reviews (23)

Less than one star - terrible!!!
I've been using excel to track my money for years, and just bought quicken to streamline it.The only way to get any of my historical information in is to type each entry individually!If your bank is not a participating institution (if they didn't pay Quickn/Intuit additional charges) the only way you can enter your transactions is by typing each one individually!What's the point in automating asystem, if you can't automate it?It's not even something you can upgrade - no imports from excel or any other format in any 2005 quicken!Not a good deal.

WASTE OF MONEY
If I am not sure, I play it smart and buy the program used.In short I was not satisfied with what I recieved.If the anecdote, "You get what you pay for." was applicable in this case, this program would be worth it's price, but it's worth less than I paid.Amazon low price of 13 some odd dollars.

Great Product...great price
I've been using Quicken for 5 years and think it is a great product. I just bought this new version to replace Quicken 2000. The new version has a number of improved features. It was really easy to transfer the data from my old computer/old version of Quicken to 2005. I used online chat and found them to be very helpful. Not sure why this product gets such a bad rap.

I thought it would be better than Quickn 2002.I was wrong!
I was perfectly happy with my older deluxe version of Quicken, but found that a)I didn't use most of the deluxe features, b)had several years worth of transactions that I couldn't archive due to a bug, and c)due to a bank change, I could no longer get transaction downloads.So, I bought 2005 basic.BIG MISTAKE! This "new improved" product is so cumbersome and confusing, I've practically stopped using it.When I start it, there are "messages" about my accounts, but I can't read them in the basic version. All I can do is delete them.The "home" page has 8, count them, 8 "Cash Flow Services" options that actually take you to sign-up pages touting for-fee additional services, many of which my bank already provides for free.And there are buttons to quicken.com EVERYWHERE that you have to work to get rid of. (Hellooooo.If I'd wanted to use quicken.com to pay all my bills, I would not have purchased Quicken.) This product is like one of those teaser game CDs that cost $5.00 but only gives you one level.And I don't really want the other levels.All I want is a product that does what it did before in a way that avoids making me relearn everything!

Ok, on the up-side, it does do a pretty good job of keeping track of my bank transactions and it seems like you can tailor it to suit some specific financial priorities, but it's just so incredibly painful to have to relearn EVERYTHING just because the banking industry changed download file formats. Microsoft may be trying to take over the software industry, but at least they don't want to be my bank so much that they totally screw up an otherwise good product.

Good at what it does, but doesn't help to get out of debt
I find Quicken to be good at what it's supposed to do -- track and manage expenses, creating reports to see spending trends, and paying bills. But, I found it was lacking in providing me direction on how to get out of debt. I found this direction, however at www.onepaycheckatatime.com. This web site has interactive that guide you through the process of targeting and paying down debt on a paycheck by paycheck basis. I use it in coordination with Quicken to guide me on which bills to pay, when and how much. Try it! ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Small Business is the comprehensive finance solution for small companies. It makes managing your finances easy so you can spend more time with your customers.* Categorize income and expenses Money automatically categorizes all your business and personaltransactions so you can see exactly where your money goes.* Get expert advice The Business Resource Center puts the latest news and useful articles atyour fingertips; Business Reports provide a snapshot of your businessfinances.* Handle billing effortlessly Money makes it easy to keep track of customers stay on top of accountspayable and receivable and create professional-looking invoices.* Simplify taxes Keep up with taxable expenses automatically link categories to yourSchedule C report and find hidden deductions.* Includes free financial services One year of online payroll from PayCycle plus all free financialservices included in Money 2005 Premium (Experian GainsKeeper and H&RBlock). REQUIREMENTS- Multimedia PC with Pentium 166 or faster processor (or compatible); Pentium II 266 (or compatible) processor required for Windows XP (Pentium II 300 recommended).Windows XP: 64 MB of RAM (128 MB recommended); Windows 2000 or Windows 98 SE: 32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended).130 MB of available hard-disk space plus 60 MB for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (if not already installed) plus an additional 200 MB while installing product updates.2x or faster CD-ROM drive Super VGA color monitor with minimum 256 colors capable of displaying 800 x 600 resolution 16-bit color recommended.Windows XP Windows 2000 SP3 or later or Windows 98 SE or later.Most online features require Microsoft .NET Passport; for more information see the Microsoft Money 2005 Internet-based services policy.Super VGA graphics card or compatible video graphics adapter.Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device.28.8 Kbps or faster modem; Internet functionality requires an Internet Service Provider (ISP); local and long distanc... ... Read more

Features

• Free financial services, including 1 year online payroll from PayCycle
• Comprehensive finance solution for small companies
• Categorize income and expenses; handle billing effortlessly
• Get expert advice from current news and useful articles
• Keep up with taxable expenses automatically

Reviews (18)

Microsoft Screwd Up this Version of Money BIG Time!
Hi,

I just started a small website design business, and I was evaluating simple accounting products to keep track of my business.

I really like the interface for Microsoft Money...it is much more intuative and laid out better than Quicken Home and Business 2005....but man, what nerve Microsoft has to require you to have one of those stupid Microsoft Passport accounts....and then to make you always be "online" to create new accounts!

GEEZ...in my opinion, they went too far!

I guess I'm a sticken with a Quicken!


:)

For disappointed in Microsoft Money
Personally, I believe that who ever takes time to post his/her opinion in order to alert others deserves one big thanks from this community. So, thanks to people above:

My Microsoft Money was bundled with my PC but I only needed fast and simple money tracking. Learning to use Microsoft Money was one big waist of my time. I was considering upgrade and naturally, first thing to do was to read reviews.

Search for Money 2005 opened My Money 2005 download page, software created by totally different company. Unlike Microsoft Money, this software was actually easy and full version was only 9.95. If you want to check this out, go to ZPSSoft.com and look for My Money 2005.You may not going to be able to run your corporation or small country with it, but it will do for all your money.

Do Not Upgrade!!
I currently have the 2004 which I upgraded from 2002.Everything was fine, therefore I would only expect 2005 to be better than 2004.It was awful, I returned the product within hours!!2005 is made up entirely of advertisements displayed all over the place, it isn't user friendly and the features that I liked in the previous versions are gone.I am extremely disappointed and highly recommended not getting the 2005 version!

I wish I had bought something else
I bought Money 2005 Small Business Edition to create some basic financial accounting for my small business. The product came with no guide, neither on paper, nor on screen - for anything you need, you need to go online. The product constant encourages you to go online - but do you want to go online with all your financials open? Could a user have Microsoft or anyone else start browsing through his finances? Unfortunately, basic functions, such as decreasing a balance on a client invoice due to a credit, seem impossible to find. I wish I had bought something else.

Incredibly disappointing version "upgrade"
First, let me say that I have been an avid fan, user, and recommender of the Microsoft Money products since I first became acquainted with them after the 1998 version release of the product.

Words cannot express how greatly disappointed I am with the product itself and Microsoft as a company for unleashing this grossly inept, buggy, and endlessly frustrating piece of trash upon its previously contended users.

I have spent countless hours trying to fix problems that Money 2005 has created in my personal financial records, and even more hours with their support people communicating with them via e-mail (a journey in frustration itself - you have to format your messages a certain way for it to even get to them).

I am, as of today, sending a request to Microsoft for a refund of my purchase price and am going to try one of the Quicken products.I've never even used ANY of the Quicken products before, and am already convinced that they are surely head and shoulders above this latest version of Money.

Shame on Microsoft for thinking that nobody would be willing to jump ship and take their business elsewhere. ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2005 Premier for Windows - Financial Management - PCQuicken 2005 Premier includes everything in Quicken 2005 Deluxe, plus exclusive tools to help you manage your investments. Over 100 customer-driven improvements to the most-used Quicken features make it easier than ever to get what you need out of Quicken!Nice electronics is your source for everyday low prices on theIntuit 283651 - QUICKEN 2005 PREMIERand all other Intuit Software - Misc ... Read more

Features

• View average annual return for entire portfolio and individual accounts
• Optimize investments, monitor worth, and view complete financial picture
• Instantly connect to bank and credit card sites with a push of a button
• Easy-to-use investment area looks just like a broker statement
• Track investment holdings; intelligent and tax-smart investing insights

Reviews (28)

it works fine...
I was still on version 2001 when I received an email notice from quicken saying they were discontinuing support for this version, including the download of quotes to my portfolio.

I was rather upset by that, as Q 2001 worked perfectly for me... and also rather impressed. I will suggest this method to my company, i.e. tell to client they have to upgrade version of our applications, because soon we won't send data any more to old versions... that's a very good business model... for the seller anyway.

Having read all the negative reviews about Q 2005, I was a bit anxious when I did the upgrade... But Everything worked fine... the new version managed to import without any problems all the data from Q 2001.. Having move from 2001 to 2005 in one jump, I found that the user interface is drastically better... I like the possibility to call the report directly from the toolbar. and also to rename/aggregate easily vendor names into a single name, as I am using a few online vendors which keep changing their denominations/names...

All in all, a very good product...So far, the only thing missing is the lack of capacity for donwloading/accessing quote/historical price for non US stocks.

Quicken & Quicken support have gone down hill
Quicken used to be an easy product to use but over the last few years each successive upgrade has become more user unfriendly.Methods of entry are changed without notice and with little or no help support.The product is becoming more oriented to Intuit's online businesses and basic, simple features are disappearing.Menus and online pages offer to sell you more Intuit services.

Year-over-year updates delete or change features and leave it to you to figure out what they have done.User support is inadequate and confusing.They even go so far as to label self-serving product changes (capability deletions) as enhancements.A good example is the removal of the QIF format import/export capability for investment data without providing a comparable capability.This results in the loss of an ability to transfer or merge investment transactions.Quicken says that using a QIF file was a "poor customer experience".They changed the product to only use a format that works with their online download despite the fact that it also deleted the ability to move transactions about on your PC. It appears their "poor experience" with having a feature with some cross-product capability was traded for a "feature" that limits you to Quicken at the expense of leaving you a "no capability experience".

Detailed documentation, particularly of changes, is lacking.Online chat user support is limited; personnel are untrained on items and recommend that you call for live telephone help.You quickly find out that live telephone "support" is a profit center at $24.95 a call.Paying them $24.95 to explain that they deleted a useful feature because they didn't think it was needed is a typical Quicken experience.

Every release worse than the last.
I've been a Quicken user from day one.Prior to 2002, I used to upgrade virtually every year.I've done this reluctantly because with each upgrade, some feature or report I use frequently gets axed in the new and improved version.In the last 4 years I've returned two releases (2003 and 2004) because of my disgust with Intuit's penchant for making the program more difficult for me to use.I read most of the reviews posted for Premier 2005 and agree with the consensus that Intuit just can't seem to get it right.

All Intuit seems to have done in the last 4 or 5 releases is to change the look and feel of the software at the expense of ease of use.There's nothing materially "better" in this release but entering investment transactions became a downright pain in the behind.

examples:
Can't cut and paste inside the check writing window (admittedly, not a frequently used feature, but gone).

Stock transactions now pop up a much less user friendly entry window.The older 2002 version of register based entry was much easier to use.

Want to reconcile that brokerage account?You really gotta hunt for this command.Why, for Pete's sake, isn't there a command, button or icon anywhere on the window with the register?

Done reconciling and want to check the account value for the date of your statement?In 2002, you were sent to the portfolio view after reconciling with the "As of" date of the view set to the statement date you used in the reconcile.Not anymore.Now you are sent back to the TOP OF the register.Were you needing to enter another transaction, you would have to scroll down to the bottom.So, you click to the Summary Page instead.This displays the current date in the "As of" the Holdings window.You must change the date to go to your statement date.Also, the Holdings window in the Summary Page is annoyingly small and won't allow you to expand it, forcing you to go back to the Portfoio Window anyway to easily see what you need to see.

I'm so heavily entrenched into Quicken that I'm stuck (Money tells me if finds conversion errors - but won't specify what they are).I will have to live with 2005, but would have stayed with 2002 to keep the simplified register based entry for stock transactions.

I could go on and on but you'll see enough complaints posted here.

Prior to 2002 I bought the upgrades every year.Now, I'll stick it out for as many years as possible to prevent further erosion of features I've grown accustomed to.

If you're a casual user and only need to cut checks, get the basic version - or try MS Money.If you're a power user, hold off until the tone of these reviews improves.

Caveat Emptor

Upgraded from Quicken 2002 Deluxe
Since online banking updates were no longer going to be supported past mid-April 2005, even the loyal Quicken customers had to upgrade to the latest version.I can understand it in my case.I needed to upgrade.I upgraded directly from Intuit and supposedly got $20 off (for current customers).All I know is I paid the same price everyone is buying it for here on Amazon.

I've been using Quicken since it's original days in DOS.I have been completely satisfied with the program all these years.The new 2005 interface will take some getting used to, but so far I like it.It was a painless upgrade of my data files from 2002 to 2003, then to 2005 data file version.I have about 10mb in data files and it works flawlessly.I refuse to do a "year-end" each year and start with a new data file.

If you're on the 2003 or 2004 version, I would not recommend upgrading yet.If you are on 2002 or earlier, you'll have to upgrade by mid-April 2005 if you want to continue using account downloads via the Internet directly into Quicken.This is something that I could not live without, so here I am running Quicken 2005 Premiere.

A very flawed product--DO NOT BUY!!!
I had been a very happy camper with Quicken for many years...until Intuit forced the upgrade to the 2005 version.What used to work flawlessly (Quicken 2002)in terms of bank and stock data downloads now would not work.Four calls to the support line got nowhere, with much fumbling around about Quicken not working well on networks, having problems with firewalls and on and on...no solutions.I finally had to just demand a refund and will now spend the money on MS Money...at least one should expect that to work with Windows XP.I guess Intuit has just gotten too greedy and/or too big...beware... ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Standard is the personal finance solution that provides fast current answers to your basic financial questions by automatically consolidating all your online financial information.* Get fast answers Money works with your bank s Web site to access your account balancesand transactions automatically--no more visiting multiple sites withmultiple passwords.* Focus on what is important to you Money fits your own financial management style whether you want to seethe big picture at a glance or quickly drill down to details.* Get automatic spending analysis Transactions are automatically categorized so you can easily track yourspending.* Take care of bills automatically Know what is paid and what is due pay bills online and get updatedaccount balances.* Your budget your way Watch a few expenses--such as dining out or utilities--create a completebudget or see all your financial details. REQUIREMENTS- Multimedia PC with Pentium 166 or faster processor (or compatible); Pentium II 266 (or compatible) processor required for Windows XP (Pentium II 300 recommended).Windows XP: 64 MB of RAM (128 MB recommended); Windows 2000 or Windows 98 SE: 32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended).130 MB of available hard-disk space plus 60 MB for Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (if not already installed) plus an additional 200 MB while installing product updates.2x or faster CD-ROM drive Super VGA color monitor with minimum 256 colors capable of displaying 800 x 600 resolution 16-bit color recommended.Windows XP Windows 2000 SP3 or later or Windows 98 SE or later.Most online features require Microsoft .NET Passport; for more information see the Microsoft Money 2005 Internet-based services policy.Super VGA graphics card or compatible video graphics adapter.Microsoft mouse or compatible pointing device.28.8 Kbps or faster modem; Internet functionality requires an Internet Service Provider (ISP); local and long distance telephone toll charges may apply. www.microsoft.com ... Read more

Features

• View the big picture or quickly drill down to details
• Easy-to-use personal finance software
• Automatically consolidates online financial information
• Works with bank Web site to access account info
• Create budgets; track expenses; pay bills online

Reviews (33)

This Product is AWFUL
Be warned....DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT....especially if you have business accounts that you need to keep separate from personal accounts.When the program updates from the bank, it downloads every account with that User ID....Unlike 2004 or earlier versions, you cannot pick and choose which accounts to download...and if you try to delete one account, you get a message saying deleting one will delete ALL....You CAN set the account to closed...but the stupid program downloads it anyway....

Truly Terrible "Upgrade"
I'm not sure it gets much worse than this, I should have stuck with 2004.When it "converted" my 2004 Money file none of the totals were right.It didn't carry over the starting balances listed in the account settings for each of the accounts, it took me days to figure out that is what the problem was.Occasionally this will happen again when it has trouble connecting to the online services at your bank, it just wipes everything out and starts all over.

Had I known it was going to be this bad I would have never touched it.

Not Ready For Beta Testing
Imagine if Microsoft Word crashed every time a period or capital letter was used or when opening saved documents some of the paragraphs appeared twice.Such is the state of affairs of Microsoft Money 2005.I have been using Microsoft Money since 1996; while it was never perfect, it basically did what it promised.I have also used the portfolio manager on the MSN website which is a subset of the Money program with a similar interface. Others have written about problems downloading bank and credit card statements; this review will focus on the portfolio manager.

The portfolio manager is the part of Money that keeps track of investment accounts. It is not unusual for multiple income families to own quite complicated investment portfolios including 401Ks, IRAs and college savings accounts.Something went very wrong in the fall of 2004 when Microsoft upgraded their software to Money 2005.Gone is the ability to analyze a single account or groups of accounts; you are forced to analyze your entire portfolio. When entering new equity transactions, Money used to allow you to simply enter the trading symbol and it would quickly find the name of the company and other information, now you must follow a wizard and enter the information manually.Previously, you could enter a back dated transaction and it would guess a price using the closing price for the day (this is very useful for watch accounts); now you must manually enter the information.

The worse part has been the removal of the associated cash accounts.I never really appreciated the separate cash accounts until Microsoft removed them.For those unfamiliar with software, here is the basic concept.Say you own an account with a discount broker like Fidelity or Vanguard that holds six mutual funds.Associated with that account is a cash account in which you add and remove cash, collect dividends and conduct other transactions into and out of the account.When you sell a mutual fund, the proceeds are put into the cash account; similarly, cash is taken from the account when you buy shares of an investment.Prior versions of Money created a distinct cash account associated with a specific investment account.You could open the account, view the transaction history and correct any errors.In Money 2005, when you create a new account it simply asks for the initial cash balance.Money then automatically mismanages this account by recording dividends twice and mishandling sales proceeds.Furthermore, money will not allow you to record interest dividends, contributions or redemptions.There is no way to view the history at all; Money simply gives you the current value in a little box.When errors occur, the fix from Microsoft is to simply change the amount in the little box to the correct value.If you access the cash account too often it begins to create multiple cash accounts labeled #2, #3 leading to cash account nightmare.

Microsoft did an upgrade to the software this weekend (May 20, 2005).They have added more features and unfortunately more bugs; I have not noticed anything that has been fixed.New problems include: 1) updates are no longer stored on the MSN server preventing you from accessing up-to-date account information from multiple computers (this may be a temporary problem); 2) investments that lack a trading symbol, such as specialty funds available through certain 401Ks or 529 plans, are no longer supported.You can see the investment in your portfolio but you cannot record "buys" or other transactions; 3) information contained in watch accounts, such as year-to-date performance was lost after the upgrade.

I hope once Microsoft is finished adding features to their Money 2005 software they will work on bringing it from Alpha to Beta quality.Perhaps, after a year or two of Beta testing, Microsoft will be ready to release Money 2005 (or 2008) for general sale.Until then, I do not see how they can legally be selling software that fails to perform its basic functions.

Stick w/ 2004
I've had 2005 on the shelf for a while and finally upgraded from 2004.I've been happy w/ every upgrade since 2001, until now.First, it doesn't upgrade the 2004 installation, it installs separately. In the end, this turns out to be the best feature of 2005, because when you inevitably uninstall 2005, you don't have to reinstall 2004!

The most annoying items for me were:
1.The toolbars at the top take too much space due to an internet navigation toolbar that cannot be turned off.Every other MS product has fully customizable toolbars, what happened here!

2.In many cases, when clicking on something to get to some aspect of your financial info, you are first taken to an MSN MoneyCentral website, which is very intrusive!

3.There is a more complex and nested arrangement of menus for features which makes it harder to find and get to stuff.


I didn't use it much beyond that.#2 was really hard to accept.

Incredibly Disappointing "Upgrade"
First, let me say that I have been an avid fan, user, and recommender of the Microsoft Money products since I first became acquainted with them after the 1998 version release of the product.

Words cannot express how greatly disappointed I am with the product itself and Microsoft as a company for unleashing this grossly inept, buggy, and endlessly frustrating piece of trash upon its previously contended users.

I have spent countless hours trying to fix problems that Money 2005 has created in my personal financial records, and even more hours with their support people communicating with them via e-mail (a journey in frustration itself - you have to format your messages a certain way for it to even get to them).

I am, as of today, sending a request to Microsoft for a refund of my purchase price and am going to try one of the Quicken products. I've never even used ANY of the Quicken products before, and am already convinced that they are surely head and shoulders above this latest version of Money.

Shame on Microsoft for thinking that nobody would be willing to jump ship and take their business elsewhere. ... Read more

Product Description

Track bank accounts and more in one place! Reports show you where your money goes. Makes tax time easier with these easy to use tools. Also connects Quicken to your bank, brokerage and 401k accounts! ... Read more

Features

• Easy-to-use software for managing your finances
• Track spending, manage investments, plan for the future, and more
• Easily download financial data directly into Quicken
• Works with 2,000+ banks, credit card, brokerage, and 401(k) companies
• View net worth by cash, property, or stocks; revealing charts and graphs

Reviews (182)

Save your money and data and computer
As with other users I have been a quicken user for years.The 2004 and 2005 are in shortest phrase; worse ever, bugges loaded with, and if use with xp media edition make sure you save all data, or when closing quickensome times you will lost you drive drivers.

Be afraid, be very afriad!
I've been using Intuit products over 10 years, both at home and work.I was recently forced to upgrade Quicken because my bank no longer supported imports into my existing version.Ever since I have had nothing but trouble.I have lost hours, even days of my time working with customer support, I even spent $30 to pay for support for a "fix" that lasted all of 2 days.I am so frustrated with the software and support that I have sworn off purchasing an Inuit product again, ever.

Save yourself some time, money and frustration by staying away from this product!

Quicken 2005 is the WORST yet
After being forced to upgrade to 2005, I'm feeling lucky that I haven't completed lost all my data.This is the buggiest software I've ever encountered.I can't seem to use it without my system hanging up about 90% of the time.Their customer support is a joke too.Last year, Turbo Tax incorrectly included a deduction on my taxes twice, and after hours with their phone support folks and no help, I refused to pay for the software, and re-filed on another (practically free) site in less than 1 hour.Needless to say, I haven't even bothered to go that route with this product.I'm just going to find a replacement for it.

This company doesn't have a clue.Stay away from their products.If you think Quicken 2004 is bad, 2005 will make you wish you were still on 2004.It has gotten worse with every upgrade -- I believe I've been using it since 1999.

Makes me wonder about the VERY FEW users here that don't seem to be having problems.Maybe they work on Quicken's "Help Desk."

LOST 4 YEARS OF FINANCIAL DATA
I have been using quicken since 1995. Never had any problems with the 2001 edition. But watchout for the 2004 version. It is by far the worst software I have ever purchased. Do not upgrade if you have older versions of quicken.

Don't upgrade!
There are a lot of negative reviews here about Quicken 2004, and they're all true. I despise Microsoft for it's arrogant behavior, and it pains me greatly to thrash a product like Quicken knowing that the only alternative is Microsoft Money (which I have never used). But Quicken 2005 is a horrid piece of software. I have used and loved Quicken since 1995 and I would hope that Intuit could fix this. But Quicken 2004 and 2005 are wretched, dangerous programs that can lose all of your fiancial data and Intuit doesn't seem to care one cent.

First, Quicken - which never used to have any problems whatsover - is now unstable. Numerous users report errors, crashes, and the like. Mine hasn't been able to backup the data file since a month after installing. I have reinstalled Quicken several times, copied my data files, etc... I have twice reformatted my HDD and started from scratch and this problem still reappears. Quicken tech support is no help at all. Not being able to trust your financial software and not being able to autoamtically make backups disqualifies this software from consideration by anyone but fools.

On top of all this, every corner of this application seems to be a come-on for an Intuit service. I don't buy software to be barraged with ads or sales portending to be features.

Finally, Quciken kept crashing every time I tried to exit the program. Scary. After tech support was no help, I figured out that it was conflicting with MS Office 2003's speech-to-text software engine (even though I never intended to install this). When I called Intuit support to tell them what I found they didn't care.

I dislike Microsoft, but I don't see any choice. It has to be better than this.

... Read more

Reviews (22)

Very very poor quality product
I agree with the other reviewer. I had been a quicken user for a long time.Since I upgraded, I have had nothing but problems!Their program is buggy as heck and they make you pay for their garbage. I am looking into alternative programs as we speak.Do not waste your money on this product. The $24 some odd you may pay for the product is nothing compared to the technical support you will be paying!

Thank you for the warnings
I was all set to upgrade to Quicken 2004. The only reason? So I could make backup files easier by burning to cd's.I too, have used Quicken for many years and would upgrade every other year.Well, after reading all the reviews, I think for the time being I will stick with my 2002 version. I can still backup on cd's the long way around. What can these companies be thinking of when they cheapen their products, hire people who can't speak with you for support, etc.
Thank you all for the warnings.I believe my money will be better spent somewhere else.

Worst Version of Quicken ...........EVER!!!!!!!
I have used Quicken since the DOS versions, this one is the worst! You cannot change any colors, period, end of discussion! You cannot remove unused, useless toolbars/frames, period, end of discussion! You will have to call tech support! You will have to endure repeated uninstalls/reinstalls! Download a trial version before you upgrade, if you can't configure it the way you want, delete it and move on!

Displeased with discontinuation of support
I have a very minor problem with Quicken 2000.It is very functional for all my needs and I am quite perturbed that to get technical support, I am forced to update.I don't need an update.I do need a very minor fix to my present system.Quite simply, the system somehow changed the opening screen and I can find no way of putting it back where it is when you first start using Quicken.I reloaded with the old disc and got the screen I want, but I have to the accounts list under the old load to find prior transactions.As for help, even the 900 number has been changed, so I can't even pay to get this rectified.What a rip-off.

What a Piece of Garbage
I have been using Quicken since "Quicken 4" on my Mac.It WAS a great program.This version is okay except for the investment portfolio.It is full of bugs, and is not at all intuitive (ironic, eh?).Further, you cannot simply "fudge" and enter your historical transactions ... so my cash balance is wrong, and impossible to correct. After researching online, it is clearly a bug that Inuit will not even acknowledge.

Hopefully they will get their act together for 2005, otherwise, I'm out of there!! ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Premium is the automated personal finance solution, providing consumers with a quick and easy way to view, improve and optimize their finances. Completely rebuilt for simplicity, Money makes handling finances easy with speedy setup, automated tools that reduce the need for manual entry, and adaptable Essential and Advanced features that enable a more personal experience. Following is an overview of the software's new and enhanced features. Money has been redesigned to bring more people into the personal finance category. Everyone’s financial wants are different. For the user who doesn’t want to spend time on their finances but just focus on the essentials, they can easily access their account balances online, have their transactions automatically categorized and instantly see where their money is going. They have ALL their financial information in one place, with minimal to no typing. For those people who like to pore over the details, Money gives you more with its advanced views. Money 2005 –one product, different user perspectives. ... Read more

Product Description

Microsoft® Money 2005 Deluxe Microsoft Money 2005 Deluxe includes everything in Money Standard; plus, it gives you all the help you need to improve credit and reduce debt, organize taxes, and automatically consolidate all of your transactions in one intuitive place. With online connections to more than 5,000 financial institutions, Money 2005 Deluxe makes balancing personal finances effortless. And with Money’s customizable Home Page, you can easily see the finances that matter most to you—from current account balances to where you're spending your money to your cash-flow forecast. Money has been redesigned to bring more people into the personal finance category. Everyone’s financial wants are different. For the user who doesn’t want to spend time on their finances but just focus on the essentials, they can easily access their account balances online, have their transactions automatically categorized and instantly see where their money is going. They have ALL their financial information in one place, with minimal to no typing. For those people who like to pore over the details, Money gives you more with its advanced views. Money 2005 –one product, different user perspectives. ... Read more

Features

• Set up a full budget, or compare actual spending to financial plan
• Personal finance solution with award-winning Portfolio Manager
• Automatically consolidates online bank and credit card information
• Essential tools for improving credit and organizing taxes
• Provides current account balances and transactions in one place

Features

• Save calculations for later review; print calculations for your own or your client's files.
• Carry a single computer for all your needs without losing your calculator's functionality.
• Calculate the way you prefer: RPN, order and chain input modes; quick access to routine functions.
• Templates appear like mini-spreadsheets, making it easy to verify your information, show clients, and work with colleagues.
• Add on or create your own templates to match the way you work.

Product Description

Microsoft Money 2005 Small Business is the comprehensive finance solution that makes managing your business finances easy. Completely rebuilt for simplicity, Money makes handling finances easy with speedy setup, automated tools that reduce the need for manual entry, and adaptable Essential and Advanced features that enable a more personal experience. Following is an overview of the software's new and enhanced features. Money has been redesigned to bring more people into the personal finance category. Everyone’s financial wants are different. For the user who doesn’t want to spend time on their finances but just focus on the essentials, they can easily access their account balances online, have their transactions automatically categorized and instantly see where their money is going. They have ALL their financial information in one place, with minimal to no typing. For those people who like to pore over the details, Money gives you more with its advanced views. Money 2005 –one product, different user perspectives. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

MS Money 2005 Beware- Bugs, Flaws & General Issues
Money 2003 was an awesome product and I dropped Quicken after 6 years to use it. But the latest version that incorporates business forms and accounts should have remained in beta.

This is a flawed product that is a step back from previous versions. The conversion from earlier versions of Money can cause file corruption problems. The product has a feature to import contacts from Outlook but it is "buggy" and causes problems. When I called MS tech support the support rep said do not use it. They claim youcan share you information with other MS passport Users but it does not work. After two hours on the phone with MS they finally admitted it was a flaw. As the other review says, the invoice feature is a joke. You spend time customizing your invoices and then when you go to save them all images and formatting are taken out and only a text file is saved. There is no PDF capability. And you can not e-mail your newly designed invoice as it also creates a "bland" text file.

When i called Microsoft, American Express and Wells Fargo Tech support ( all support product)all support technicians said they hear nothing but problems with this product.

Money 2003 and 2004 were great. What alet down 2005 Small Business is. Stick to Quicken and Quick books and save your self hours on toll calls to tech support that results in no known fixes and no information in the MS Knowledge base.

Stay away!!
Don't make the mistake of buying this product. Learn from my mistake, I lost my hard earned $90 on this useless buggy piece of software.

I am still no able to digest the idea that you have to keep all your banking information on their servers to be able to receive bank transactions automatically. If you are concerned about security and automatic transaction updates are important to you, do not buy this product.

Other problems:
- Does not updates bank transactions consistently
- Clicking on update creates accounts one more time instead of just downloading the transactions
- Custom invoice template is a big mess. You can create custom templates and save them. But, you cannot edit them or use them to print invoices.

I wonder what kind of dimwit product manager has managed and released this product.

I wish there was some kind of consumer protection law that would let me return this product and get my money back. ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2004 Premier.Quicken 2004 Premier lets you see your financial picture in minutes. New Express Account Setup instantly connects Quicken to your bank, credit card, brokerage and 401(k) accounts to download your transactions and balances, then sets up your accounts for you with your data already up to date.* New features also let you optimize your investments and help maximize your tax savings. Find out how your average annual returns measure up to leading benchmarks like the SP 500 Index and take action if you need to! You'll learn more tax-efficient investing strategies and be able to stay on top of your deductions all year with Schedule A, B and D tax reports. ... Read more

Reviews (38)

Premier not worth it; stick with Deluxe
I upgraded from Quicken Deluxe 2003 to Quicken Premier 2004. I won't address whether or not I think the 2003-2004 upgrade was worth it. What I am addressing is that I don't think the Deluxe-Premier upgrade was worth the extra cost.

Premier gets you some portfolio analysis tools and "insights", which I don't find that helpful (I am not an active or sophisticated investor).

As an aside, I -do- think the Deluxe features (over Basic) are worth the extra money. Deluxe gets you investment tracking (Basic appears to only give you basic checkbook tracking).

In 2001, I switched from Microsoft Money to Quicken. The original motivation was because I thought I might get a Mac, so I wanted my personal financial data to be prepared for the move (Quicken is also available for the Mac, but Microsoft Money is not). The feature set in 2001 was better in Quicken than in Microsoft Money (better tracking of investments like ESPP and 401k).

Recently (Quicken 2003-2004), however, I have been encountering random bugs and inconsistencies (multiple paycheck deposit accounts doesn't work consistently) that lead me to believe that Microsoft Money has probably reached parity with Quicken by now. And I still haven't switched to a Mac.

Since I now have a few years' data tied up in Quicken, I won't be frivolously switching back to Money anytime soon (unless Quicken completely screws something up), but unlike in 2001, I don't think I can unconditionally recommend Quicken over Money anymore.

Not as bad as I've read here -- buy 2004 and not 2005
I was hesitant to buy the product because of all the negative comments.I upgraded from Quicken 98 and it's been a pleasant experience.It was time for me to upgrade.I didn't like having to pay $50 for only minor new features.I bought a 2004 copy of the Premier Home and Business for only $18.Strangely, people are charging $45 for a 2004 Premier.For $27 less you get Home and Business.The upgrade is well worth it if you are still using a very old copy of Quicken.

Moo!
I'm hoping to get a better response here than from Intuit's customer service. Could one of you people who simply love this product please tell me how you produce meaningful reports given:

1. "Exclude internal transfers" includes internal accounts, anyway.
2. Phantom amounts show up on reports. (Intuit has acknowledged this problem since April.It's now July...)

Intuit made me upgrade in '99 because they forgot about Y2K.They made me upgrade again this year because they stopped online services for Quicken '99.Does anybody doubt that in a year or two, this product will no longer work?How else can they keep the cash cow alive?

pay bill nightmares
I've been using Quicken for over a decade and loved it all along the way.I'm a fully advanced user.I was very happy with 2000 but forced to upgrade to be able to continue on-line banking.I have had nothing but problems hooking up to the bank with my new 2004 (I've NEVER had one problem with this before in 5 years).I have used overseas Intuit techs for 3-4 hrs off and on (and they charge you!!!).Sometimes the bill-pay works, sometimes it doesn't.I know it's the new Quicken software as its never been an issue before.I am quiting Quicken.I've had it. There's something wrong with this program.

INVESTORS, DO NOT UPGRADE - FLAWED
I have been happy with Quicken 2003 and I recently purchased Quicken 2004 as an upgrade. Upon installation, all of my investment data was incorrectly converted or not converted at all. ALL of my investment accounts are now inaccurate. I am terribly dissatisfied with this product. Their website seems to attribute conversion problems to "bad data files." I find that extremely hard to believe unless the user was having trouble with cross-linked files prior to the conversion. In my opinion, the suggestion that this type of problem is caused by cross linked/bad data files is lazy, inaccurate and unacceptable. It's a way of saying "we really don't know what causes this bug, but here's our suggestion to throw the blame back on you, Mr. Consumer - we blame your computer system." I've suggested to Intuit that they stop putting so much time and effort into making this product look pretty with all of the bullet point box features and focus on a solid release candidate with no severe bugs. In my opinion, this product is about 3 months shy of being commercially acceptable. This bug will cost me countless hours - probably well over 100 - in sorting and reconciling all of my investments. It's ridiculous really. Based on what I've read in public forums, I would assert that this product is responsible for countless lost hours among many unsatisfied customers. Unfortunately, because of the nature of this problem and the financial dependence I have on this product, I no longer trust this product nor do I trust other products released by Intuit. I will go through the excruciating process of reconciliation simply to get everything back to current/accurate so I can convert to another program - MS Money, etc. I will not purchase another Quicken product and I recommend that others do their homework before purchasing this drink coaster (errr, product) as an upgrade. Personal money management is a serious issue - in my opinion, being accurate and clean should take priority over everything else.

I'm so burned, if I could rate this product a big fat zero or go into negative territory I would - but if you're read this far, you now know that my rating of '1' is really a z-e-r-o. ... Read more

Product Description

Intuit Quicken 2004 Premier Home and Business.Quicken 2004 Premier HomeBusiness includes all the business features you need with the ease you want. And because it's from Quicken, Premier HomeBusiness provides familiar, user-friendly approaches to manage your business finances:Quicken 2004 Premier HomeBusiness includes all the business features you need with the ease you want. And because it's from Quicken, Premier HomeBusiness provides familiar, user-friendly approaches to manage your business finances: Create customizable estimates and invoices See where your business stands at a glance Generate business reports and graphs, including Schedule C Automatically track taxes for Schedule C Track accounts receivable and payable Track vehicle mileage, jobs and projects Write checks, print checks, or pay bills online* And more! Also includes everything in Quicken 2004 Premier to help you optimize your personal finances: Instantly set up and connect all of your financial accounts to Quicken to quickly and easily download your financial data directly into Quicken. Quicken 2004 works with over 2,000 banks, credit card, brokerage and 401(k) companies, so you avoid manually entering your financial transactions. You can be sure that Quicken is always up-to-date with your latest financial data. Schedule when you want Quicken to download your financial data so that Quicken is always up-to-date with your latest financial data. Track your investment holdings without taking the time to enter every historical transaction. You can decide to add in transaction details later for tax purposes or performance analysis. See your net worth over time with the Net Worth Monitor. View the breakdown of your net worth by cash, property, or stocks. See the average annual return for your entire portfolio and individual accounts compared to seled benchmarks for key periods (e.g. 1, 3, or 5 ... ... Read more

Reviews (26)

support
The support of this product is very poor. The first question from the company is about the customer's credit card number even if the product was just bought and it does not do what is described in the manual. I was trying to point out the problem with the program and the standard answer was: "Our product is flawless; the problem is with you". I am familiar with financial programs and accounting but after trying to use the program for two weeks I gave up and decided to return it.

Perfect for home based consulting business
I have a simple home-based consulting business with 2 employees and a small number of customers. Quicken Home & Business is the perfect accounting system for me. I was a financial officer for several companies and have used several high end systems. This is the easiest and most efficient accounting system ever made - an excellent product. If it covers your needs, you should consider yourself lucky.

Here are some highlights and pointers:

1. Data entry is extremely fast. As soon as you start typing, Quicken guesses what you are going to enter and fills it in for you. Check book entries are effortless. This is the most important feature of any accounting system because sole proprietors should not waste time with data entry.
2. Credit card transactions are automatic. Get yourself a separate credit card for business transactions and download directly into Quicken. I have used 4 different cards and the best integration is the with Quicken Master Card. It also earns you about 1% in airline awards or gift certificates. Just click on "one step update" and you have all new transactions ready to review.
3. Bank reconciliation is completely done for you. You never need to go through a bank statement again, matching up transactions. Quicken "one step update" downloads new transactions and finds the corresponding entry in your check register. You just confirm or add if it is a new transaction. When the monthly statement comes, you enter the ending balance and Quicken figures out which transactions cleared. You rarely need to even look at the bank statement.
4. Reporting is simple. Just choose from dozens of pre-designed reports and make small adjustments if needed. You can also export any report to modify it in Excel or Word if you prefer.
5. Invoicing is simple and quick. Just create descriptions for each service you offer and invoicing is a snap. Quicken tracks which invoices have been printed and tracks receivables effortlessly.
6. Tax reporting is easy. You can instantly produce a Schedule C and if you also purchase TurboTax (which I highly recommend), you can import data directly into your tax forms.
7. Manage cash between multiple bank accounts. If you choose a bank that is supported by Quicken, you can easily move funds between checking and savings.

A few pointers for using the product.
1. Don't confuse this product with other Quicken products such as Quicken Deluxe or Quicken Premier.
2. Intuit also produces QuickBooks, which is not a product I recommend. If you need the power of QuickBooks, there are other applications available that may be better.
3. Don't combine your personal and business financial data in one file. Quicken recommends you do this but you definitely should not. Instead, set up your personal Quicken file first. Then from the main menu, select File/New/New Quicken File. It is very easy to switch between your personal file and your business file and you will not have any problems with reports, tax forms etc. if you keep them totally separate. You do not need to purchase additional software licenses to have multiple files. I have 3 businesses and one personal file on my copy of Quicken Home & Business.
4. Create a liability account called "owners draw". Quicken does not explain this well, but this will become your owners equity account on your balance sheet. When you draw funds from the business (unless you do it through payroll), you assign the check or transfer to "owners draw" and this will accumulate on your balance sheet to show the true net worth or your business.

I wish that I read the reviews first
I tried to install this program a couple of days ago and was prompted to uninstall the previous version (Quicken 2002 Deluxe). I chose to do so. At the end of the installation process, I got the error message "Your program files may have been damaged. You will need to reinstall Quicken." I uninstalled using Add/Remove Programs and reinstalled with exactly the same result.

At that stage, having looked in vain for help on the Intuit site -- the solution to this error message did not work for me -- I went elsewhere and found dozens of negative reviews. Intuit seem to have hit rock bottom with this product.

So I decided to go back to using Quicken 2002, but of course it had been uninstalled and I can't find my original CD. So I chose to use the Windows XP System Restore function to roll back the clock. But although Quicken 2002 reappeared, my Quicken file no longer seems to work properly. The screen freezes and flashes when I switch from one account to another.

I called Intuit this morning and described my scenario. They offered to replace my Quicken 2002 at a total cost of $20 plus. It would take them two days to get it out of the warehouse and a further 7-10 days for shipping. Shouldn't they provide a free downgrade when their buggy software doesn't work?

I have been very impressed with this software.
This is first time I have used Quicken, and I am impressed with the sophistication of the software.It is very cool.Balancing my check book is easier then I thought, as well as, updating my investment portfilio. I did have to upgrade to a preffered online bank account to get automatic updates though. That cost about $3/month, but worth it.For my bank, online bill pay is another $3 more for 10 bills per month.Some investment accounts will not download to your quicken but the quotes will.Also, you definetly need to read Quicken 2004 for Dummies.It can take about 20 some hours to learn the majority of the programs with the book.I wouldn't even try without it.Once you learn it, if you have the time, it is worth it.At least so far for me.I just put in about 20 plus hours with it so far, and I haven't done too much on the business side, such as payroll.Good luck.

Intuit Stumbles on Quicken 2004
A major player in the personal finance software arena for years, Intuit and Quicken has helped thousands keep track of their personal finances.I have been a Quicken user since the early days (Quicken 1 and 2), have upgraded to new releases over the years and have always been very satisfied with the Quicken product.

Quicken 2004 Premier changed all that.

The release of Quicken 2004 was advertised as allowing you to get instant answers to questions like "Are my investments outperforming the market?" and "What is my return for the past 1,3 and 5 years?"Unfortunately, after upgrading from Quicken 2003 to Quicken 2004 Premier, the question I was asking most was "What happened to my data?"

Quicken 2004 has corrupted my personal finance information on four separate occasions (I know, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" ... I don't want to even think about "fool me four times...").

My financial books include four checking accounts, several credit card accounts, some loans, several investment accounts, and a smattering of other accounts.No account type is immune to corruption.

In my checking accounts, one major problem is that Quicken 2004 insists on making up numbers (really, really, BIG numbers, like as big as your computer can handle), creating transactions with random dates to go along with the made-up numbers, and then inserting these transactions in the register.At one time my calculated net worth was too large to display (I wish ...); another time I owed more than the United States GDP. On another occasion Quicken 2004 erased all of the transactions from one checking account, strangely keeping a balance that looked to be about right. In another account, I have been overdrawn once due to a Quicken 2004 error.

In the investment accounts Quicken 2004 decided to change the ticker symbols of some stocks in the investment accounts to unknown symbols on more than one occasion.It's not clear when this happened; it may have been during the updating process when prices are downloaded into Quicken.This caused trouble not only in evaluating the portfolio, but the reconciliations of the accounts were very challenging, because I was never sure if the difference was due to my error, or if Quicken had changed a symbol in one of the dividend re-investment transactions (which it did on two occasions).

A few of the shortcut keys that Quicken power users have grown accustomed to, no longer work in Quicken 2004 (hitting the space bar to select a check during reconciliation, for example).These are known errors and "will be fixed in the next release".At least that's what I was told when I discovered the issue in Release 1.It has not been fixed as of Release 5.

I was given the above information on one of my several attempts to get help by calling customer service.I was helped by "Jennifer", although I suspect her name was really Neeraja, or Srividya or something similar.Customer service appears to consist of very bored people, who are very far away, reading answers in OK English off of scripts to solve problems you did not call with.I was told once to reload Windows (I did not).Most of the time, I was told to run the File/File Operation/Validate option within Quicken 2004 (I did several times).I don't remember ever having to run that option on earlier versions of Quicken; I'm not sure it even was an option with Quicken 2003.On another occasion, I was questioned quite closely about the type of printer I had.Apparently, printers have become notorious corruptors of data in Quicken 2004.So, who knew? (I'm joking -- they're not).In no case, did the call to customer support solve my immediate problem.

Sending in questions via email was better in the sense that I did not receive any wrong or useless information.In fact, I received no information at all.All emails went unanswered.Bug reports are never acknowledged, but they never have been.

Running Quicken 2004 requires some serious horsepower.Intuit will tell you Quicken 2004 can run on a Pentium 200 or higher machine with 32 MB RAM and 75MB hard drive space.I originally installed Quicken 2004 on a spare Pentium 233 MHZ machine with 100MB hard drive.Big mistake.When I fired up the software, the lights in the house didn't exactly dim, but I bet they wanted to.Quicken 2004 is unbearably slow on machines below the recommended 300MHZ limit, and I wouldn't put it on anything less than 700Mhz.Quicken 2004 seems to be doing a lot of disk I/O and window rendering and all of that thrashing around costs performance points.My copy of Quicken is now installed on a Dell Dimension 4600, 2.79GHz, 512RAM, 111GB free hard drive, Windows XP Professional.As you might expect, speed is no problem.

On the plus side, Quicken has done a nice job with the charts and reports.So, even if the numbers are wrong, they look marvelous.The screen gets real busy, though, what with the Menu Bar, the icon bar, the Quicken Home side window, the main register window, the transaction window and the maddening Inuit advertisements (`Try Turbo Tax - the #1 tax solution year after year") at the bottom, all showing up at once.Intuit will tell you that Quicken 2004 works with a Super VGA (800 x 600).It will, but the recommended 1024 x 768 with 16 bit color monitors will make your life more pleasant.Again, the numbers might be wrong, but at least you'll have a shot at seeing them.

So, what's a body to do?Well, I'm digging through my files looking for my copy of Quicken 2003.I'll revert back to that.It worked fine, no funny stuff, had almost all of the features of Quicken 2004 and it was stable.In the meantime, I'll keep watching Intuit to see if they fix the new version, and begin to understand what customer service is all about. ... Read more

Features

• Generate tax summary and personal donation reports
• Software for turning charitable donations into tax savings
• Easily track cash and noncash contributions during the year
• Fair-market values for commonly donated items; expert advice
• Information on donating automobiles to charity and other overlooked deductions

Reviews (5)

Not worth the time or the money (and don't download it!)
I downloaded this software directly from H&R Block as part of an offer for the rebate to get the software free as part of purchasing it with Taxcut. So, I downloaded it with Taxcut, figuring, why not? It's free! WRONG! The rebate if only valid for "retail" purchases (i.e. not downloading it - what a ripoff!).

The software is completely useless, the fields are tiny, you can't enter medium to long charity names, and then you have to edit them in Taxcut (twice the work). It is simpler to use Taxcut honestly. I would never ever buy this software again and I would never again get baited into things I don't need by "free" rebates!

Buggy Software that Does Not Save Time
After manually entering many "non-cash" items, I found the total amount for this category was not reflected in the summary page and shown as $0. The data would also not export to Taxcut. When contacted, the technical support "help" was to re-enter everything and if that did not work, to re-install the software. The software did not save me time - it doubled the time it would have taken to just enter the information directly into Taxcut.

Good for the basic stuff, nothing more
I had no install or functional issues with this product, however my complaint is this: for $19.99 this software should know armoire, stereo CD player, etc.Basically it has a database of the most common household and office items, nothing more.In the long run will it help you save more money?Maybe, depends on what you are trying to claim.

I expect more from H&R Block.

This software is awful
Warning: After successfully saving my file, I continued to input over 100 line items in this program (a very time consuming task). When finished, I tried to save but received an error message. Then when I tried to open my file, the message said it wasn't a valid file format. My file was corrupted and cannot be retrieved, and the technical support had no idea how it happened or whether it could happen again. They suggested that I back-up the file, but since this all happened in one sitting, I didn't have the chance.

The non-cash charitable contribution section is a great idea, but it's cumbersome: you have to scroll down a very long list each time (no key words). Plus, there are many every-day items that aren't on the list; bicycle helmet is, but dishware isn't.If the item isn't on the list, you have to enter it manually and assign a value, which is what I was trying to avoid by buying this program.Also, some of the distinctions are laborious; you need to indicate if a women's top is button down or v-neck, for example.

I haven't tried the alternative, but I won't buy this program again.I am in the process of returning it.

Good for large deductions
After getting it configured with all the specs it needs (charity names, etc), easy to use and acurate.I took a sample list of what it has into my local Goodwill store and prices were pretty accurate for clothing and more so for furniture.

I would say one could do the same by walking through a charity shop to place the value on donated goods but if one does not have a local shop or the time then pick this up.

One draw back I found is that when you set it up, you have to select one year or the other (2004 or 2005) could not choose both or revert back and rechoose.Although I suspect if one would remove it (registry entries too) and reinstall it, then you could select another year and track this years donations.

The other draw back is entering the items, for each one, you have to enter the date, would not use the same date used in previous entry, which I needed as I dropped off a couple of bags of clothes.


BTW This product may or may not have been included free inside the Taxcut Deluxe packages like mine was. ... Read more

Amazon.com Product Description

Would you like to protect your assets against financial threat? Achieve a lifetime of financial security for you and your family? Avoid lawsuits and hassles from those who want your wealth in their pockets? If your answer is "yes," this complete electronic encyclopedia of techniques and strategies to safeguard assets from financial disaster is for you. This treasure from Dr. Arnold Goldstein, one of America's foremost authorities on debt management and asset protection, is newly updated and packed with the latest secrets. Dr. Goldstein is an attorney, professor, and author of more than 100 books on finance and law. His strategies have helped thousands of people shelter their assets successfully. ... Read more